


Guilty Of Nothing

by LiinHaglund



Category: Weiß Kreuz
Genre: Assassins & Hitmen, Behind the Scenes, Dubious Consent, Explicit Language, Families of Choice, M/M, Mind Control, Mind Games, Schuldig Is His Own Warning, Secret Organizations, Slice of Life, Telepathy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-12
Updated: 2013-10-12
Packaged: 2018-03-25 20:53:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 6
Words: 4,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3824710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LiinHaglund/pseuds/LiinHaglund
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is some old crap I eventually published. I was trying to get a feel for how to write Schuldig, and I ended up doing a fic without really meaning to. It's not overly dark, but it's not cuddly either.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Breakfast

I'm cooking breakfast. Normally we all feed ourselves, usually toast and some type of beverage, before we rush off somewhere. There is no reason to eat standing up today, so I'm not going to. I prefer my meals to take a bit longer than two minutes.

Unlike the kid and the demon-wannabe I grew up like any normal kid. I was a menace, sure, but I still had a stability they can't even dream of.

It isn't haute cuisine, but my cooking is better than the rest of them manage. Not to mention that my skills when it comes to flipping pancakes even impresses the resident kinetic – even if the kid will never admit to it.

“Schuldig?” Nagi asks hesitantly. The kid doesn't like speaking any more than the redheaded kitten does – now that would be a marriage made in Hell – but if you pay attention they both say whole sentences with just one word.

 _Are you cooking for us too?_ is the question hidden beneath the name. Fair question. I don't always do that. I'm selfish and my needs comes first.

“Sure. Set the table. It's just us.” Just us. Because Brad and Farfarello are away. “Get some juice if you want it.”

“We have juice?”

I would have laughed if I hadn't been working with Brad for so long. The man is a miser. “Yes, I went shopping on my way home last night.”

I hear Nagi open the fridge, can taste the surprise in his mind. He is used to Brad's way of shopping, which means we barely have enough food to go around. A full fridge is an oddity in this household.

“So, what horrible thing do I have to help you with?”

I do laugh then, at Nagi being incapable of thinking I can be nice without asking for something in return. “Nothing.”

“Schuldig...” Nagi fiddles with the juice box. He's afraid of accepting a treat unless he can see the hook underneath.

“Nothing. Enjoy it until McMiser returns, then we're back to toast and tea.”

“Thank you.” The kid doesn't smile, but his mind has a pleased and happy taste to it. Sadly, this is the extent of his experience with home cooked meals.

The truth is of course that I could afford to feed them, keep the fridge stocked so the kids aren't always hungry. I don't because it's Brad's team. The precog has brought in both Nagi and Farfarello, so they are his responsibility. Not mine. If I start making them my business he will paw them over on me, and I'm too young for kids.

The money Eszett provides is enough for me, the money Brad gives me is just extra icing on the cake. Nagi and Farfarello just get whatever Brad deems fit to give them, and that isn't much. The man has an odd view on the teenagers, seeing them more as pets than anything else.

Eszett suggested once or twice that Brad wasn't taking enough care of them, but I'm not supposed to know that so I pretend I don't. I have no problem pretending I'm just an airhead. It serves me just fine and gets me out of trouble a lot.

I turn the stove off.

“I'm going into town later,” I say while I serve myself. It's a day off and I'm not staying indoors. I see the inside of buildings way too much. And the metro, because you can hardly drive in this Hell hole. It has about half of my entire home country's population crammed into one city, and for no good reason either.

Nagi nods but leaves no comment. He just serves himself and starts eating.

He doesn't ask for a ride – Brad would never have given him one.

He doesn't plan on meeting friends – he has none.

So on this day Nagi plans on catching up on homework and do some intel work Brad asked him to do. Fifteen and already a workaholic. Must be his Asian genes.

“Don't even consider it,” I say when he starts thinking about just hacking into the school database and changing his grades. “You're there to learn, not get perfect scores.”

“Why aren't you my guardian?”

“I'm too young and irresponsible.” I grin to prove my point. “Besides, you don't even know my real name.”

Nagi frowns. He's asked Brad of course, but Brad doesn't know. Eszett is a touch protective of its telepaths, and none of us go by our real names. Considering that Brad has the right to know everything from Nagi's shoe size to his sexual preferences, that should tell you something.

It could have something to do with there only being ten telepaths still able to draw breath that Eszett are aware of. I'm not bragging when I say I'm one of the better ones. I am. I still have things to learn, but I am very good at what I do, thank you very much.

Speaking of not using your real name, I decide to visit The Grudge. He's hours of entertainment normally. I finish eating and rinse my plate before loading the dishwasher.

Tokyo has a charm of its own. It's the biggest city in the world, it bleeds neon and the Japanese are obedient and organized. It has seas of black hair, black suits, and college kids dressed like they're at a permanent masquerade ball.

Driving is Hell, but I do it anyway. Our rivals, the Gayer Than Thou Flowerboys, live and pretend to work on the outskirts. It's easier to get through there and the area is actually very nice. I kind of like it.

I often seek out the redhead. The Grudge. We share something even if he doesn't know it. We both loathe the Takatori family. He's focused on Reiji, but personally I want them all gone. Even little Omi. Perhaps especially Omi. The old man is aware of being an asshole.

Of course, I could kill them at any given day, but Eszett has plans, Brad has plans, so I humor the people who pay me by allowing the continued existence of the Takatoris. It's got nothing to do with morals or some sort of goodness in my heart. No. Oh, no. They haven't even been particularly nasty to me.

I climb the facade on the building the flowerboys live in and enter one of the bedrooms through the window. He's not there. He never is unless he's asleep or upset. Or both. That does happen a lot.

My fascination with The Grudge lies in what he keeps hidden. On the surface he's incredibly dull; antisocial, short tempered, lives for his revenge and his sister. Underneath though, under all that that disillusioned hostility, he's still the kid he was before.

And _Ran_ is a _sweet_ boy. Still no social butterfly, mind you, but if I lock away the memories he has from when his parents died and forward...

“Hey Ran,” I chirp when he enters.

He smiles and greets me by a fake name, one I always give.

I do this a lot. When I let the illusion slip later he will hate me for it, but right now I'm his friend. I just allow him to remember the parts of our encounters from before I give his full memory back.

Last time he cried when I gave his memory back in full. He doesn't have what I'm offering him during these little illusions. A friendship with no strings, that easy camaraderie where you completely trust and feel safe. That is what hurts the most for him, that I give him this and then take it away.

I don't do it just to be an asshole. That is a major part of it, but another part of it is that I don't have anyone to talk to either. We're both lonely in our own ways.

He's somber, more than usual, but he cuddles up to me where I'm half-sitting on his bed. My control slips a lot, and he sometimes knows I'm not who he thinks I am, but he's willing enough to delude himself that it doesn't matter.

I decide to test faith and stop messing with his head. It takes a while and it's disorientating for him.

“What do you want?” he asks without moving away. He's a clever cat, he knows we're not out to kill Weiss and he knows he can't best me. He doesn't feel safe, but he knows he won't die.

I think about it for a few seconds. “Sunshine.”

I don't get a reply to it. Ran isn't much for chitchat when he remembers all the tragedies in his life. He does get up and finds a hoodie in his closet. He's in jeans and a t-shirt, both black, and I sigh at the fact that hoodie is black as well. Then again, he likes the color.

And isn't that just hilarious?

We leave through the front door so he can put his shoes on and he gets into my car without argument. I never understood why Japanese insist on slippers and straw floors.

The downside to having an unaltered Ran with me is that he's severely depressed, not very chatty, and knows too many ways to kill a guy.

But I do like a challenge.  

 


	2. Late Night

Brad is stacking folders according to the nature of the jobs contained inside. There are five stacks, as per usual.

Mastermind, Berserker, Prodigy, Oracle, and one for all of us. Brad doesn't trust Nagi and Farfarello to do important jobs alone so their stacks are dreadfully thin. He takes most of the bodyguard gigs himself, which I find dull, while he leaves me to handle our general interests and get things moving in the direction he wants it to.

“Anything fun?” I ask, not disturbing my stack yet. Brad has memorized all the information and I'm going over it the fun way. He's too tired to notice, anyway.

“Not really,” Brad answers. His voice sounds tired too.

“Go to bed,” I suggest.

The two of us are the _adults_ , even though Brad has five years on me he doesn't see me as a kid. I treat him like a partner more than I treat him like my boss. He's not very bossy towards me. He gives me my marching orders and leaves me to do what I think will be best.

Brad sighs. He doesn't want to, but he knows I have a good point. He is tired and without him we can't complete the mission tomorrow. It's not so much that he's invaluable, we're just short on experienced field agents inside Schwarz. If we wanted to we could ask for an outside agent to hop in temporarily. Eszett has enough people to lend us a few.

“Seriously, tomorrow is a long day.”

“They're never long enough,” Brad mutters. He's not big on accepting help. He dislikes and distrusts Eszett too much.

“Don't make me explain to Eszett why you suddenly slip up,” I caution.

“Nothing would happen, you'd just end up on a new team.” He's a little bitter at my free card. I'll be reassigned while Brad has a whole new world of trouble to look forward to.

He's much more bitter towards Eszett. It's why he dislikes me reading his mind. Like I could miss it, even if I didn't. It's in his eyes, as clear and fierce as the sun over Sahara. He hates them all, and it amuses me.

“Yeah me, sure, but Farf gets killed and Nagi? Your little kid gets tortured. As far as they're concerned he's as good as yours. A little responsibility here, McTired.”

Brad shrugs. He's given up on my nicknames. I only do it in private. If I disrespected him in public he wouldn't be so cool about it.

I realize then that Brad doesn't care. That could get interesting. “Go to bed, McSleepy, you want to sleep,” I suggest softly again and push a little command into his brain. I walk away to my own room.

“Goodnight, Satan,” Brad says.

I feel sorry for Nagi. Farfarello is crazy, but even he sees Brad as a father and would react badly to anyone trying to separate us. They both rely on him. They both view Schwarz as their family.

If I was a bigger asshole than I already am I would harass them for it. If I was less of an asshole I would protect them. As it is, I'm just asshole enough to decide that any potential split will be hours of entertainment.

Brad calling me Satan has a nice ring to it.

Schuldig.

Satan.

Well, Satan sure as Hell was guilty. What a way to punish a guy, too. God must have laughed his ass off. The angel who rebelled against him is punished by being forced to punish everyone else who steps out of line. I have to remember to tell Farfarello that.  

 


	3. Farfarello

My fellow European teammate has some odd habits.

He's not that much younger than me, but he's a kid. He can be somewhat independent, but he still comes back for approval and advice. Farfarello was never a leader. He's a follower.

When Brad is away he follows me around.

Eszett operatives aren't supposed to be so... dependent. I may get orders from Brad, but I can make decisions on my own.

It's like having a puppy sometimes.

Beneath all the scars, he's not ugly. He's not rotten to the core, either. His grip on reality is just a little loose.

“Can we kill today?”

I run over all the jobs I have stacked up in my head. “Sure,” I say with a grin. “Let's find something.”

One of the reasons I like Farfarello is because to him I'm this awesome person. I always let him kill. It's simply practical for me, but he knows very little about our jobs. He doesn't know about my workload. He just knows I'm good at finding victims and that I will make sure Brad's not pissed.

To me... He's my attack dog. I point, he attacks.

I lead him to a house, to him it's random, and tell him to kill the man inside. He will kill the rest of the family. I don't care. Survivors are just trouble. Look at Fujimiya. That's what happens when you slip up on the job, you create little Grudges running around.

Farfarello takes his time, but he's not as unprofessional as people often assume. When he reemerges he's not covered in blood, but there's a spatter here and there. Hardly enough to notice. I decide he's still presentable.

He learned early on that I will make him walk home if he's too bloody. Sometimes he showers in the victim's home. Even little Farfarellos can be taught manners.

It's Saturday, so I take him to a grocery store and tell him to pick something sweet. I feel like watching a movie. It's evening and Brad won't be back until Monday night or Tuesday morning. I pick up something for Nagi, something for me, and then I load up on soda and potato chips.

Reason number two for why I'm awesome, I suppose. Brad doesn't initiate movie nights or game nights. Or any casual interaction. He will sit with us if he's around, and sometimes he gets mellower during that time.

Even Nagi is in good spirit when he notices we're having a movie night. He's moping over Tot so hard I think he might soon turn into Ran. Nothing a little chocolate and a funny movie can't cure.

With Nagi anyway, Ran is clinically depressed and needs serious amounts of therapy and possibly prescription drugs. Or me, if I was in a mood to fix him. I'm not.

Farfarello claims Brad's chair. Or rather, the chair Brad tends to sit in. He does that a lot, Farfarello. Sometimes he steals our clothes and wear them until they stop smelling like us. It's kinda cute if you're into deranged psychos.   

 


	4. Manipulative? Me?

I'm driving Nagi to school. Brad took him out of it for a week to do a mission. A mission that didn't go too well for little Nagi because of his pseudo-girlfriend getting run through.

“Do I have to go? I haven't studied for my maths test.”

It's very like Nagi to pretend to be nervous about all the schoolwork he has skipped because of the mission. Sometimes I wonder why he thinks he can fool me. But, sure, let's play this game.

“How would you explain two men living together to a social worker? With live guns and explosives in the kitchen? A clearly insane boy locked up in one room? All of them foreigners and with no food in the kitchen?” I laugh. “Stick with the program, kid.”

Nagi stares at his lap.

“Here,” I give him a stack of bills. “Brad won't be home until tonight. Stay behind in school and do your homework, then go shopping before you head home. Your clothes don't fit and I have standards.”

It's my money. Brad buys him school uniforms, and that's it. I give him money on the side so he can have casual clothes. The allowance he gets from Brad barely covers anything.

“Thank you,” he says quietly. He's not sure if he's being reprimanded or not.

“He's not mad,” I tell the kid.

“But -”

“No, listen. He knew it would happen and he didn't shoot you. That means whatever punishment you get is just his way of telling you that it shouldn't happen again.”

“Did she die?”

“Tot? No. Don't look for her.”

Nagi frowns. He doesn't understand, but we're at his school now. “So I fixed her?”

I can't help but snort. “Do. Not. Look. For. Her.”

He will, of course. I just promised Brad I would tell him, so I'm telling him. It's not my fault that teenagers are so predictable. I grin at his retreating back. She's on my kill list, but hey, zombie girl might be dead if she turns on Nagi.

Less work for me.

I drive by the flower shop and pick up Ran. He's snarly and upset. I don't blame him.

He calms down over coffee and pastry.

I don't try to soothe him by telling lies about how it'll all work out. It will, but it also might not.

I take him to a hotel and let him sleep. He doesn't rest enough.

While he's out I wander the city and pick up a few things from the shops I pass.

Back at the hotel I arrange things the way I want them. I hold him unconscious with a firm hold of my telepathy.

He's relaxed enough in sleep that entering his ass is doable with a lot of lube and some care. I need to fuck and he's better than a lot of the other options. He's clean and his lack of experience will make it easier to warp him to my tastes.

I stop forcing him under and hold still while he wakes up. I know there's no pain, just discomfort. Still, he fights and snarls and curses and I simply hold still inside him until he sags down. Then I start fucking him.

He's had sex before, but only with a girl and it was a long time ago. As minutes pass by he tries to make sense of things, but when he fails he has to focus on his body.

I kiss him because he looks cute when he notices he enjoys it. By cute I mean utterly disgusted, but hey... I like this kid for his _suffering_.  

 


	5. Wet

Farfarello is bleeding when he finally comes home. He normally tends his own wounds, so I don't think twice when he disappears into the bathroom. Brad forced us to leave him behind, saying he would catch up. True enough.

I'm busy stitching up Brad. He has a nasty cut in his forehead and it can't really wait. I have summoned Eszett without his knowledge. It's easy to do when you have a gift that acts like a telephone.

“I don't remember signing up for doctor duty,” I mutter while I stitch neat stitches that will heal to barely visible scars. I'm good with my hands.

I don't know if it's the blood loss or the fact that we just got our asses kicked, but Brad returns my jibe with: “Why the Hell are you still here?”

“Did you honestly think Eszett didn't know?” I laugh. “You're too cute. You wanted to off them for years, at least three telepaths know about it, Brad. Your shields are not _that_ good.”

He thinks this over.

“Yes, they stood back to watch. You're still getting a visit from the boss,” I inform him jauntily.

“That's it?”

“You tell me, McFuture.”

We don't say anything else. I finish up and walk outside. I have a few shallow cuts on my throat, but I cleaned them and wrapped gauze around my neck, so I should be good. I'm just glad the wires didn't dig deeper than they did.

Nagi is out on the porch. He's wet, bruised and in a really bad mood. He didn't want to leave Farfarello, and he's angry that Brad is so ruthless. As if this was news.

“Go in and get cleaned up,” I tell him. He obeys, thinking that he likes me better.

I stay on the porch, watching for the car I know will come in minutes. I recognize it when it does roll up, a blue sedan with a dent on the hood.

Our boss, a British fellow called Tanner, steps out and nods to me. I nod back, looking bored because I honestly am. Tanner is next in line after the Elders. He's going to shout at Brad for a bit and then leave. He's not really angry.

“Don't,” I say when Tanner reaches for the handle, “you'll be shot.”

“The kids?”

I shrug.

Tanner decides to take the plunge anyway. He's the second last Eszett operative with any kind of authority in Asia. If he's gone, so is the Eszett Elder's branch in the area.

Nagi is standing in front of Brad when we enter. He's too weak to stop bullets, but the kid is protecting his family.

And me?

I shoot Tanner from behind of course. I did warn him he would get shot. Nagi and Brad looks at me with surprise written all over them. I just laugh. “Idiots.”

Farfarello choses this moment to emerge from the bathroom. I grin at him and wave my gun in a salute. “See, that's how you shoot people.”

The boy huffs and goes to the fridge. He doesn't ever really feel hunger, but he gets cravings.

“Clean up on isle three!”

“We need to get going,” Brad says.

“Yeah, we do, we have a date with Mr Janitor,” I grin.

I do enjoy how Brad pales two shades.

“Why don't you kids go pack while mommy and daddy talk?” I ask.

Farfarello walks to his room with a carrot in his mouth. I know he really wants chocolate, but Brad does the shopping. I eat out, or convince clients to treat me to lunch. Sometimes I even make random strangers buy me food. Because I can.

“What are you playing at?” Brad asks me cautiously.

“ _Weiss_ wants a word. He's a little upset. He doesn't mind that we offed a few idiots, but he would have liked a warning.”

“Eszett's Weiss?”

“I doubt Fujimiya would make you go pale like that.”

“You, you are the Devil.”

I grin and preen as if he had just given me a compliment.  

 


	6. White

There's a techno beat on the stereo. I never liked music with too many words. It creates too much of a distraction for me.

Nagi is riding with me. Farfarello is in Brad's car.

“Schuldig?” Nagi asks. He's not sure what he wants to ask me. His mind is buzzing with a million questions. I have no answers I feel like giving, so I say nothing. Airhead, that's me. No idea what that kid's asking. As if this brat is even my responsibility.

We're going to Tanner's boss who is much more, shall we say, _human_. Not harmless, but infinitely more sane.

Brad was in a mild chock before we left, but now he's just seething at never having been told. As if that was ever my job. He doesn't know that I know, he thinks I'm a lowly minion who parties all night.

We roll into headquarters and park on the back. I've been here before, oh I knew, but I never told Brad.

Nagi gets out of my car when I do, but he doesn't head over to Brad. He stays by my side.

Farfarello is glaring at Brad the entire walk to the appointed conference room. He's been pissy about being left. I'd be too.

We're seated with the guy who's running Eszett's biggest operation in Asia by a charming secretary. She could kill all of us.

“Mastermind,” he greets me. He doesn't know the rest of Schwarz, so it's not out of disrespect to Brad.

“Fancy meeting you again, Weiss,” I say with a grin. The rag-tag team called Weiss is a joke. This guy is not. This is the person in charge of the Cleaning Crew. Eszett's version of Human Resources. If your HR department could kill and torture, that is.

“This is Schwarz?”

I nod once.

He eyes the other three, then goes back to our file. “I'd like a word alone,” he says to Brad.

I get up and herd the kids with me into the waiting area outside. Weiss considers them too young and too out of the loop to be shouted at. And me, well, I just did my job.

The argument that follows is nothing short of epic. We can hear some of it through the closed door, glass rattles in the windows. I'm not worried. Brad is an asshole on many levels, but he's not a retard and Weiss is not vengeful. Unlike Fujimiya, or The Grudge as I call him.

“Schuldig?” Nagi stands closer to me and tugs my sleeve, like a little kid.

“Yeah?” I think that the kid had better spell it out this time, because I'm not in the mood.

“What's gonna happen now?” Nagi asks me.

I shrug nonchalantly. “Depends on Brad.”  

 


End file.
